Russia Opens Civil Case Against Google Over Search Results

Russia has launched a civil case against Google, accusing it of failing to comply with a legal requirement to remove certain entries from its search results, the country’s communications watchdog said on Monday.

If found guilty, the U.S. internet giant could be fined up to 700,000 rubles ($10,450), the watchdog, Roskomnadzor, said.

It said Google had not joined a state registry that lists banned websites that Moscow believes contain illegal information and was therefore in breach of the law.

A final decision in the case will be made in December, the watchdog said. Google declined to comment.

Over the past five years, Russia has introduced tougher internet laws that require search engines to delete some search results, messaging services to share encryption keys with security services, and social networks to store Russian users’ personal data on servers within the country.

At the moment, the only tools Russia has to enforce its data rules are fines that typically only come to a few thousand dollars, or blocking the offending online services, which is an option fraught with technical difficulties.

Three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday that Russia planned to impose stiffer fines on technology firms that fail to comply with Russian laws.

The plans for harsher fines are contained in a consultation document prepared by the administration of President Vladimir Putin and sent to industry players for feedback.

The legislation, if it goes ahead, would hit global tech giants such as Facebook and Google, which – if found to have breached rules – could face fines equal to 1 percent of their annual revenue in Russia, according to the sources.

 

UK Parliament Seizes Confidential Facebook Documents

Britain’s parliament has seized confidential Facebook documents from the developer of a now-defunct bikini photo searching app as it turns up the heat on the social media company over its data protection policies.

A British lawmaker took the unusually aggressive move of forcing a visiting tech executive to turn over the files ahead of an international hearing that parliament is hosting on Tuesday to look into disinformation and “fake news.”

The parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has “received the documents it ordered from Six4Three relating to Facebook,” Committee Chairman Damian Collins tweeted on Sunday, adding that he had already reviewed them. “Under UK law & parliamentary privilege we can publish papers if we choose to as part of our inquiry.”

The app maker, Six4Three, had acquired the files, which date from 2013-2014, as part of a U.S. lawsuit against the social media giant. It’s suing Facebook over a change to the social network’s privacy policies in 2015 that led Six4Three to shut down its app, Pikinis, which let users find photos of their friends in bikinis and bathing suits by searching their friends list.

Collins, a critic of social media abuses and manipulation, is leading the committee’s look into the rise of “fake news” and how it is being used to influence political elections.

Lawmakers from seven countries are preparing to grill a Facebook executive in charge of public policy, Richard Allan, at the committee’s hearing in London. They had asked for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to appear in person or by video, but he has refused.

The U.K. committee used its powers to compel the chief executive Six4Three, Theodore Kramer, who was on a business trip to London, to turn over the files, according to parliamentary records and news reports. The committee twice requested that Kramer turn over the documents. When he failed to do so, Kramer was escorted to parliament and told he risked imprisonment if he didn’t hand them over, the Observer newspaper reported.

Facebook wants the files to be kept secret and a judge in California ordered them sealed earlier this year.

The judge is expected to give guidance on the legal status of the documents as early as Monday, Allan wrote in a letter to Collins.

“Six4Three’s claims are entirely meritless,” Facebook said in a statement.

Runners Who Dislike Litter Do Plogging

Many athletes have been doing it for a long time without even knowing it is now a fitness trend. It’s called plogging, a combination of jogging and picking up. And what is being picked up is trash. The Swedes are credited with starting the trend and now it’s spreading in the United States. As Faiza Elmasry tells us, many athletes in Washington seem to like multi-tasking with a group of likeminded runners and keeping their city clean and beautiful. Faith Lapidus narrates.

British Lawmakers Warn They Will Vote Against Brexit Deal

It took Britain’s Theresa May and 27 other European Union leaders just 40 minutes to sign the Brexit deal after two years of tortuous negotiations, but the trials and tribulations of Britain’s withdrawal agreement approved Sunday in Brussels are far from over.

As they endorsed the 585-page the agreement, and a 26-page accompanying political declaration that sets out the parameters of negotiating a possible free trade deal between Britain and the European Union, powerful political foes in London plotted strategies to undo it.

There is little evidence Britain’s embattled prime minister will have sufficient support to win legislative endorsement of the deal in a House of Commons vote next month. That was clearly on the minds of European Commission officials Sunday as EU leaders gave their backing to the terms of Britain’s split from Brussels after 44 years of membership.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned that Britain cannot expect to get a better deal, if its parliament rejects the agreement. “Now it is time for everybody to take their responsibilities, everybody,” he said.

“This is the deal, it’s the best deal possible and the EU will not change its fundamental position when it comes to this issue, so I do think the British parliament — because this is a wise parliament — will ratify this deal,” he added.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte warned British lawmakers that no better deal was on offer from the European Union, urging them to back the agreements.

“If I would live in the UK I would say yes to this, I would say that this is very much acceptable to the United Kingdom,” Rutte said, because the deal “limited the impact of Brexit while balancing the vote to leave”. In a bid to help the prime minister, he said May had “fought very hard” and now there was “an acceptable deal on the table”.

“You know I hate [Brexit], but it is a given,” he told reporters. “No one is a victor here today, nobody is winning, we are all losing.”

Opposition in Britain

Maybe it is a “given” in Brussels, but in Britain that is another matter altogether.

Both Remainers and Leavers in the British Parliament are warning that May doesn’t have the necessary support with the all the opposition parties lined up against the deal and as many as 100 lawmakers, Remainers and Leavers among them, from May’s ruling Conservatives pledging to vote against it as well.

Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative leader, said he would continue to oppose the deal because it “cedes huge amounts of power” to the European Union.

In Scotland, first minister and leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party Nicola Sturgeon said, “This is a bad deal, driven by the PM’s self defeating red lines and continual pandering to the right of her own party. Parliament should reject it and back a better alternative.”

She wants a second Britain-wide referendum, like a majority of Britons, according to recent opinion polls.

The agreement calls for Britain to stay in the bloc’s customs union and largely in the EU single market, without the power to influence the rules, regulations and laws it will be obliged to obey for a 21-month-long transition period following formal withdrawal on March 29. The deal would allow an extension of “up to one or two years” should the negotiations over “the future relationship” not be completed by the end of 2020.

May is campaigning to sell the agreement to the British public, hoping she she can build enough support in the wider country to pressure the House of Commons to endorse the deal. European Parliament approval is almost certain.

May’s warning

In an open letter to the British public published Sunday, May promised to campaign “with my heart and soul to win that vote and to deliver this Brexit deal.” If she is unable to do so, Britain would be plunged into what May herself has called, “deep and grave uncertainty.”

Her aides say she is banking on the “fear factor,” daring the House of Commons to vote down a deal which if rejected would leave Britain most likely crashing out of the bloc, its largest trading partner, without any agreements, which would be costly economically and would almost certainly push the country into recession.

Ominously, the Northern Ireland party, the Democratic Unionist Party, whose 10 lawmakers May’s minority government relies on to remain in power, says it will vote against the deal. And DUP leader Arlene Foster warned Sunday she is ready to collapse the government to block a deal that would see Northern Ireland treated differently than the rest of Britain.

And a senior Labour lawmaker Tony Lloyd said there was a “coalition of the willing” in the Parliament ready to reject May’s deal and support a softer Brexit. So, if the deal is voted down, what then? A vote against could trigger a general election, a second Brexit referendum or even more negotiations, despite Brussels’ threat there can be no other deal.

 

Many in Rural US Find Fewer Maternity Care Options

For decades, Americans have migrated toward urban areas seeking opportunities, emptying out large swaths of countryside. In their wake, they have left shrinking communities that struggle to support multiple businesses, schools and hospitals.

This is a common theme in the Midwestern state of Iowa, whose population has grown by less than a million people in the past century. As family farms have consolidated into megafarms run by large corporations, rural residents have moved to cities like Des Moines, the state capital, or left the state altogether.

​Shrinking rural America

The northwest region of Iowa has been hit especially hard, forcing those who remain to drive farther and farther for things like groceries, education and health care.

At its peak, the town of Mallard hosted several grocery stores and restaurants, four churches, a cinema and two schools, one of them private. Today, its population of about 265 supports little more than a gas station and a couple of bars. The 100-year-old Catholic Church closed last summer, and the public school will close next year, forcing students to ride on buses to a neighboring town.

Kayla Lanning, a former horse training assistant, takes it all in her stride.

“We’re used to it. It’s not any big deal to us to have to travel a little ways,” she said. In her case, “a little ways” can mean a two-hour drive.

When Lanning learned she would be giving birth to twins, she was told that she could either schedule a cesarean section at her nearest hospital, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) away, or travel to a better-equipped hospital 135 kilometers (85 miles) away. She and her husband, John, chose to make the long drive and avoid the C-section.

Luckily for the Lannings, the drive to the hospital was uneventful, aside from a police officer pulling them over for speeding. The babies were delivered in the hospital, but prematurely; that meant being transferred to yet another hospital, even farther away.

Lanning admits to being a little “irritated” by the distances involved, but accepts it as the part of the trade-off for staying in Mallard.

​Fewer options

But not everyone is able to make it to a hospital with a proper obstetrics unit.

“It’s not uncommon for me to get a call from an ER (emergency room), where they say, ‘We have a patient. She started bleeding, she’s 28 weeks along, and she came in here’” to a hospital with no such unit, said Dr. Neil Mandsager, who specializes in high-risk pregnancies.

Many hospitals don’t even have an ultrasound machine to check the status of a baby, said Mandsager, the medical director of obstetrics at Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines. As a result, he travels about 865 kilometers (540 miles) each month to pay weekly visits to patients in rural health care centers.

The problem isn’t isolated to Iowa, which ranks 36th among the 50 states in terms of population density. According to a University of Minnesota study published earlier this year, “18 million reproductive-age women live in America’s rural counties, but over half of these counties have no hospital” where a woman can give birth.

Bigger gaps

Mandsager said Iowa “does a pretty good job of creating a system that works as best as it can for the pregnant woman, but there’s still definitely some gaps, and these gaps are getting bigger as these small hospitals close.”

Typically, obstetrics services in one to three maternity hospitals or obstetrics units close in Iowa each year, but this year, the number has spiked.

“I can’t remember a year when eight [obstetrics units] closed. That’s a pretty high number,” he said.

Mandsager, along with Stephanie Trusty, a nurse clinician at the Iowa Department of Public Health, attributes the closings to concerns over quality of care, malpractice insurance, profitability and low patient volume. They say it’s also difficult to attract and retain physicians.

“In rural Iowa, delivering babies is not scheduled. If they’re a single practitioner in a rural area, then they’re on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You know, that’s hard,” Trusty said.

In addition, there is the worry that so few deliveries can impact a physician’s and nurse’s ability to keep up their skills. Trusty said she looked at the maternity records of the eight hospitals that closed their obstetrics units or shut down altogether this year and found that three of them averaged less than one birth per week.

New mothers surveyed

The Iowa Department of Public Health for years has used a survey given to new mothers as a way to assess concerns. The patient survey collects data on issues such as distance traveled and quality of care received. Trusty said the survey has had an extremely high response rate. Of the 40,000 yearly births in the state, the department receives about 20,000 survey responses.

Surprisingly, she said, those responses haven’t reinforced their fears.

“We asked ‘did they have trouble getting prenatal care,’ and very few were refused care, and most people said it was still easy to get access,” Trusty said. “On how many miles they drove? The data didn’t change for years and years, so we took it off our survey.”

That was five years ago. Because of the large number of maternity ward closings this year, Trusty said they will reintroduce the question about “distance traveled” in next year’s survey.

As for whether couples may be dissuaded from settling in smaller towns because of these longer commutes, Lanning said it didn’t factor into her decision.

“We are so grounded here. John grew up here, and everything we know and do is here. So yeah, that doesn’t affect that,” she said.

NASA’s Latest Mars Probe to Attempt Landing 

After traveling hundreds of millions of miles through space, NASA’s latest Mars probe will arrive Monday at the Red Planet. 

Scientists have carefully chosen where they want the probe, called InSight, to land, selecting a large volcanic plain named Elysium Planitia. They say the site has few rocks and less chance of wind gusts that could potentially knock over the lander. 

The spacecraft will take a crucial six minutes to enter Mars’ atmosphere, descend and land. During that time, InSight will decelerate from an initial speed of 19,300 kmh (12,000 mph) down to just 8 kmh (5 mph) when it touches down. To aid the landing, scientists have equipped InSight with a parachute, descent thrusters and shock-absorbing legs. 

If all goes well, InSight will make the eighth successful landing on Mars. 

“My heart is beating inside of my chest like a drum,” NASA project manager Tom Hoffman said Wednesday during a news conference about the planned landing. 

Scientists say they are trying to determine whether the craft needs a small nudge to put it in the proper place for landing. Since InSight launched May 5, scientists have made four small tweaks to its path to ensure it arrives on target. Engineers were able to skip an additional nudge because the other maneuvers went so smoothly, and they say they might also be able to skip the final adjustment scheduled for Sunday.  

By the time it lands, InSight will have traveled 484 million kilometers (300.7 million miles). However, once the lander is on the Martian surface, it cannot move, as it is not a rover. Scientists say it is critical that InSight land in the correct location, because wherever it lands is where it will stay. 

NASA says the landing site has been particularly quiet in recent weeks, with few storms. 

“We’re expecting a very plain day on Mars for the landing, and we’re very happy about that,” said Rob Grover who is overseeing the landing phase. 

Once landed, Insight has a unique mission to explore Mars’ interior. While other missions have sought to better understand the planet’s surface and atmosphere, this is the first to focus exclusively on what is under Mars’ surface. 

The $850 million InSight mission is planned to last about two years and will try to gather an array of information, including Mars’ below-ground temperature and seismic activity, as well as to carry out an underground mapping project. 

Insight is armed with a crane, heat probe and seismometer and is able to hammer 5 meters (16.4 feet) below the surface. 

Scientists are hoping the mission will help answer questions about the composition and evolution of the planet and whether Mars was formed from the same mixture of materials as Earth. 

Once InSight touches down, it will wait for 16 minutes to allow the dust that it kicked up to settle down again. Then it will deploy solar arrays, a critical step that will allow the lander to power itself for the next two years. InSight also has a battery system, but that will only last one day. 

The lander is expected to touch down on Mars about 3 p.m. EST (2000 UTC) on Monday. Scientists hope to know quickly whether the landing was successful but say if communication with the spacecraft is delayed, they might not know InSight’s status for several hours or even days. 

NASA’s website will be broadcasting news of InSight’s approach and landing all day Monday. 

Ranchers Combat Overgrazing to Protect Climate

Meredith Ellis gets a bit rapturous about the little patch of earth under her feet.

When she bought this northern Texas land several years ago, it was overgrazed and overrun with weeds. Now, she’s thrilled to find a dark green blob of fungus she rolls under her sparkly-nail-polished thumb. She picks a tiny patch of the green moss from between clumps of tall brown grass gone dormant with the fall chill.

“Look at all these little bits of biodiversity,” she said. “That’s like a little fantasy world going on in there.”

Bringing it back has been a labor of love — love of the G Bar C Ranch where she grew up, and for the 4-year-old son she’s raising here.

“Everything I do, I think about him now,” she said. “I think about his future, and what is this world going to look like when he’s my age?”

Ellis worries about the droughts, floods and other calamities he may face from climate change. She wonders if there even will be enough food to go around.

It’s a big reason why she raises her cattle a bit differently than most.

The differences not only help to combat climate change. They also provide more clean water. They can even save ranchers money. And if one project goes forward, farmers may get financial rewards for making the changes.

Meadows vs. lawns

Ellis’s fields look like meadows. Her cattle forage among an assortment of thigh-high native grasses.

Other ranches nearby look like giant lawns. Cows have grazed the grass monocultures nearly down to the ground.

The difference matters, says rangeland scientist Jeff Goodwin with the Noble Research Institute, because the native grass is “not only feeding this cow herd. It’s also feeding the underground herd: the microbes, the biology in the soil. That’s what really makes that soil an active, living, breathing system.”

It’s a system with the potential to remove tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

“The more forage production that we’re getting, the deeper the root systems, the more carbon we’re sequestering out of the atmosphere,” Goodwin added.

That’s increasingly important. Scientists warn that the world needs to do more than just stop producing greenhouse gases in order to avoid the worst of climate change. Carbon dioxide needs to be actively removed from the atmosphere in order to keep the planet from potentially catastrophic warming.

While engineers puzzle over high-tech solutions, a recent report from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine says nature offers tools that are ready to go today.

Valuable ecosystem services

Grasslands and the soils beneath them act as giant carbon sinks, the report notes.

But not if they are overgrazed.

Around the world, one estimate says, about 200 million hectares are overgrazed, an area roughly the size of Mexico. 

One study estimates that optimizing grazing could cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 89 million metric tons, roughly the same as permanently parking 19 million cars.

Plus, overgrazed land erodes more easily. That’s a double whammy. Ranchers lose fertile soil, and it ends up muddying drinking water downstream, which increases the cost to make it tap-ready.

On the other hand, healthy grassland soils that store carbon also store and filter water.

Those benefits should be worth money, Goodwin said. They’re known as ecosystem services, and the Noble Research Institute is working to develop a marketplace for them. Ranchers would earn credits based on their soil’s carbon content and its water storage and filtration capacity.

Some major food and beverage companies are interested in the market. Many have set goals to improve sustainability up and down their supply chains.

“There’s not really a solid path forward” for many of them to meet those goals, Goodwin said. “We feel like we’re sitting in a very good position to be able to provide that opportunity.”

All profits from the soil

Many of the steps ranchers could take to earn ecosystem service credits would help their bottom lines anyway.

“A lot of people want to talk about soil health building as a thing to do for the environment. But really, it’s something we need to be doing for our profitability as well,” said Michael Vance, managing partner at Stark Ranch, a short drive from Ellis’ operation.

“All your profit comes from the soil,” he added.

He stood in a field where cattle had recently been grazing, but you’d never know it. The grass still stood tall. His neighbors don’t understand why he doesn’t let the cows graze it all the way down. They think he’s wasting it.

“We get phone calls where people want to drive a bailer in here and bail up this grass, but they don’t realize the positives that come by leaving it standing,” he said.

The field grows more grass when cattle are moved off it sooner. That means Vance buys less feed.

Even if it’s more profitable, it’s not easy for people to change their ways, and ranchers are a conservative bunch.

“You realize things that you were raised doing, things that your dad and your granddad did, maybe weren’t the best things to do,” Vance said, “from an environmental perspective, maybe from even a profitability perspective.”

Financial incentives might help other ranchers make changes, he adds.

The Noble Research Institute plans to launch a pilot ecosystem services market in 2019 and is aiming for a full rollout in 2022.

Multiple Sclerosis Treatment Developed in Australia Shows Promise

Australian researchers have made a breakthrough in the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis using immunotherapy. Their world-first trial has produced promising results for the majority of patients enrolled, they said, including a reduction in fatigue and improvements in mobility and vision.

The treatment targets the Epstein-Barr virus in the brain that Australian researchers believe plays a role in the development of Multiple Sclerosis, or MS, a disease of the central nervous system. Immune cells extracted from patients’ blood have been “trained” in a laboratory to recognize and destroy the virus.

“What happens in MS, there is an immune reaction going on in your brain that is represented as if that your immune system is attacking the brain cells,” said Rajiv Khanna, a professor at Queensland’s QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. “Once that happens, your normal function in the brain gets impaired. We are trying to develop a treatment that could actually, sort of, make the immune system to work properly rather than going in the wrong direction.”

Researchers hope the treatment could stop the progression of MS. They say the trial is significant because they have shown the technique is safe and has had positive improvements in an autoimmune disease.

Seven of the 10 participants in the Queensland trial have reported positive changes, including Louise Remmerswaal, a mother from Queensland.

“Ever since the trial, it has just improved so much that now I can go out and spend time with my family and friends,” she said.

Further research is planned in Australia and the United States.

The new therapy is developed by the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane and the University of Queensland.

The results of the clinical trial have been published in the peer-reviewed journal, JCI Insight.

Michigan Judge’s Genital Mutilation Ruling Shocks Women’s Advocates

Women’s rights advocates said they were shocked when a federal judge in Michigan ruled this week that a law protecting girls from genital mutilation was unconstitutional. They called his decision a serious blow to girls’ rights. Legal experts said the judge made clear that U.S. states have authority to ban the practice, though only about half do.

Here is a look at the ruling, which dismissed several charges against a doctor accused of cutting nine girls in three states as part of a religious custom, and what could happen next.

The ruling, simplified

Dr. Jumana Nagarwala was among eight people charged in federal court in Michigan in connection with the genital mutilation of nine girls from Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois between 2015 and 2017. Authorities alleged that mothers brought their girls to Nagarwala when they were roughly 7 years old for the procedure.

Nagarwala has denied any crime was committed and said she performed a religious custom on girls from her Muslim sect, the India-based Dawoodi Bohra.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman threw out mutilation and conspiracy charges against all the defendants. He ruled that a 1996 federal law that bans female genital mutilation was unconstitutional because Congress didn’t have the power to regulate the behavior in the first place.

Heidi Kitrosser, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, explained that Congress doesn’t have unlimited authority to legislate and can only make laws that fall within powers explicitly outlined in the Constitution.

In this case, Friedman found that Congress lacked authority to regulate the practice under the Commerce Clause because the procedure is not a commercial activity. He also said Congress’ treaty powers don’t give it authority, because there was no rational relationship between treaty obligations that call for equal rights and a law banning genital mutilation.

But the judge clearly stated that the power to regulate female genital mutilation lies with state governments, which have primary authority in defining and enforcing criminal law.

“The court really could not have been clearer in suggesting this is something that states can do,’’ Kitrosser said.

Human rights fears

The AHA Foundation works to protect women from genital mutilation, honor violence and forced marriages. The group said the ruling was outrageous and set a precedent that cutting girls’ genitals was not a concern at the national level.

While 27 states have laws against female genital mutilation, including Minnesota and Illinois, the 23 states that don’t could become destinations for the procedure, said Amanda Parker, the foundation’s senior director. Michigan lawmakers banned the procedure after Nagarwala’s arrest.

“This is exactly how we got here. The defendants in this case had the victims shipped from Minnesota to Michigan, and the only way of holding them accountable for FGM was the federal statute,” Parker said in a statement. She said the court ruling “sends the message that the authorities are not serious about protecting girls, especially those in immigrant communities, from this form of abuse.”

Friedman said in his ruling that states without laws specifically banning female genital mutilation can still prosecute the practice under laws that criminalize sexual battery and abuse.

“No state offers refuge to those who harm children,” he wrote.

But those abuse laws often don’t take the specific issues surrounding female genital mutilation into account, said George Zarubin, AHA’s executive director.

“This is such an underground, secretive, barbaric practice,’’ Zarubin said. “I think the judge made a major mistake.”

Is this common?

Genital mutilation, also known as female circumcision or cutting, has been condemned by the United Nations. The World Health Organization says there is no health benefit to the procedure, and it can cause numerous health problems. The practice is common in parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East and is generally performed as a way of controlling a girl’s sexuality.

It’s difficult to gauge how often genital cutting occurs in the U.S. because the practice is largely underground. A 2012 study from the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention estimated that more than 513,000 girls in the U.S. had been subjected to or were at risk of undergoing genital cutting.

What’s next?

Federal prosecutors have the option of appealing Friedman’s ruling, but it’s unclear if they will. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has not returned messages from The Associated Press this week seeking comment.

Molly Blythe, an attorney for Nagarwala, said Friedman’s decision was warranted under the law and it is “exactly what our justice system is designed to do.”

Although the bulk of the case is now dismissed, Nagarwala and three others still face federal obstruction charges, and Nagarwala faces an additional count of conspiracy to travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.

Blythe said Nagarwala will continue to fight the remaining charges.

If Friedman’s decision stands, the AHA Foundation will work with Congress to try to pass a new federal law to ban the procedure nationwide, Zarubin said. The foundation will also continue work to ban the practice in all 50 states.

“I think a lot of us in the community that are working to try to ban female genital mutilation in this country are beside ourselves” with this decision, he said.

13 US Agencies Involved in Climate Change Report

The federal government released on Friday a report that stated the impacts of climate change — from wildfires to increasingly destructive weather events, such as hurricanes, heat waves and droughts — are already affecting the United States, and the danger of more of these natural catastrophes is worsening.

The report said the related losses from climate change, including lower labor productivity and deaths because of extreme heat and weather events, would amount to the hundreds of billions of dollars by 2090.

The U.S. Global Change Research Program, made up of 13 federal departments and agencies, produced the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which was put together with the help of more than 300 experts, guided by a 60-member Federal Advisory Committee. The material was extensively reviewed by the public and experts, as well as a panel of the National Academy of Sciences, according to the report.

The 13 federal departments and agencies involved in the report by the U.S. Global Change Research Program:

Department of Agriculture 

U.S. Agency for International Development

Smithsonian Institution 

National Science Foundation 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Environmental Protection Agency 

Department of Transportation 

Department of State 

Department of the Interior 

Department of Health and Human Services 

Department of Energy

Department of Defense 

Department of Commerce 

What Is the US Global Change Research Program?

On Friday, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) released the National Climate Assessment, a report that says the impacts of climate change, including powerful storms, droughts and wildfires, are worsening in the United States. 

The report also said these more powerful, longer-lasting weather disasters are triggered, at least in part, by global warming. It said such weather disasters are becoming more commonplace around the country and warned that without aggressive action they could become much worse. 

What it is: The USGCRP is a federal program mandated by Congress to coordinate federal research and investments in understanding the forces shaping the global environment, both human and natural, and their impacts on society. As the leading federal authority on global change science, USGCRP and its member agencies play a key role in engaging and educating citizens about climate and related global change. 

What its mandate is: USGCRP was established by presidential initiative in 1989 and mandated by Congress in the Global Change Research Act of 1990 to “assist the nation and the world to understand, assess, predict and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change.” 

What agencies are included: The USGCRP is composed of 13 federal agencies and departments that conduct or use research on global change and its impacts on society, in support of the nation’s response to global change. 

 

What the USGCRP’s main functions are: 

  1. Advance global change science 

  2. Prepare nation for change 

  3. Assess U.S. climate 

  4. Coordinate internationally 

  5. Link climate and health 

  6. Provide data and tools 

  7. Make science accessible 

What its history is: Since 1989, USGCRP has submitted annual reports, called Our Changing Planet, to Congress. The reports describe the status of USGCRP research, provide progress updates and document recent accomplishments, in particular the broad spectrum of USGCRP activities that extend from Earth system observations, modeling and fundamental research through synthesis and assessment, decision support, education and public engagement.  

Source: GlobalChange.gov 

S&P 500 Slides Into ‘Correction’ for Second Time This Year 

U.S. stocks closed lower after a shortened session Friday, bumping the benchmark S&P 500 index into a correction, or drop of 10 percent below its most recent all-time high in September. 

 

Energy companies led the market slide as the price of U.S. crude oil tumbled to its lowest level in more than a year, reflecting worries among traders that a slowing global economy could hurt demand for oil. 

 

“Oil is really falling sharply, continuing its downward descent, and that appears to be giving investors a lot of concern that there’s slowing global growth,” said Jeff Kravetz, regional investment director at U.S. Bank Private Wealth Management. “You have that, and then you have the recent sell-off in tech and in retail, and then throw on there trade tensions and rising rates.” 

 

Losses in technology and internet companies and banks outweighed gains in health care and household goods stocks. Several big retailers declined as investors monitored Black Friday for signs of a strong holiday shopping season. 

 

Trading volume was lighter than usual, with the markets open for only a half day after the Thanksgiving holiday. 

 

The S&P 500 index fell 17.37 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,632.56. The index is now down 10.2 percent from its last all-time high set Sept. 20. The last time the index entered a correction was in February. 

 

The latest correction came as investors worry that corporate profits, a key driver of stock market gains, could weaken next year. 

 

“The market is repricing and trying to assess where we’re going to be in the early part of 2019,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial. 

 

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 178.74 points, or 0.7 percent, to 24,285.95. The Nasdaq composite dropped 33.27 points, or 0.5 percent, to 6,938.98. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks picked up 0.40 point, or 0.03 percent, to 1,488.68. 

 

Crude oil prices fell for the seventh straight week on worries that a slowing global economy could hurt demand, even as oil production has been increasing.  

The benchmark U.S. crude contract slid 7.7 percent to settle at $50.42 per barrel in New York. That is the lowest since October 2017. Brent crude, the international standard, lost 6.1 percent to close at $58.80 per barrel in London. 

 

Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members have recently signaled a willingness to consider production cuts at the oil cartel’s meeting next month. Such cuts would prop up oil prices. The U.S. has been increasing pressure on Saudi Arabia and OPEC to not cut production. 

 

The slide in oil prices weighed on energy stocks. Concho Resources, a developer and explorer of oil and natural gas properties, slumped 6.3 percent to $126.96. 

 

Tesla fell 3.7 percent to $325.83 after the electric auto maker said it intends to cut prices for its Model X and Model S cars in China to make them more affordable. 

 

Traders had their eye on retailers as Black Friday, the traditional start to the crucial holiday shopping season, began. Shares in L Brands, operator of Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works, added 2 percent to $29.97. Other retailers put investors in a selling mood. Kohl’s fell 3.7 percent to $63.83, while Target lost 2.8 percent to $67.35. Macy’s dropped 1.8 percent to $32.01. 

 

Rockwell Collins climbed 9.2 percent to $141.63 after Chinese regulators conditionally approved the sale of the maker of communications and aviation electronics systems to United Technologies Corp. 

 

Investors will be watching next week when Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump meet at the Group of 20 summit in Argentina for signs that the two leaders can find common ground to begin unwinding the spiraling trade dispute. 

 

The dispute between the U.S. and China has weighed on the market, stoking traders’ worries that billions in escalating tariffs imposed by both countries on each other’s goods will hurt corporate earnings at a time when the global economy appears to be slowing.  

“If you can get President Trump and President Xi to even just come closer with their rhetoric and make a bit of progress on the trade front, that could be the catalyst for markets to move higher,” Kravetz said. 

 

It may take more than a meeting to work out deep-seated issues between Washington and Beijing, which resumed talks over their trade dispute earlier this month. According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. has asked its allies to stop using telecommunications equipment from Huawei, which is Chinese-owned. The report cited people familiar with the matter. 

 

Bond prices fell Friday. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 3.05 percent from 3.04 percent late Wednesday. 

 

The dollar fell to 112.88 yen from 112.97 yen late Thursday. The euro weakened to $1.1330 from $1.1406. The pound eased to $1.2810 from $1.2876. 

 

Gold declined 0.4 percent to $1,223.20 an ounce. Silver dropped 1.8 percent to $14.24 an ounce. Copper slid 1 percent to $2.77 a pound. 

 

In other commodities trading, wholesale gasoline plunged 7.9 percent to $1.39 a gallon. Heating oil lost 4.8 percent to $1.88 a gallon. Natural gas fell 3.2 percent to $4.31 per 1,000 cubic feet. 

 

Major indexes in Europe finished mostly higher after shaking off an early slide. 

 

Traders were weighing the latest developments in the negotiations for Britain’s exit from the European Union. Both sides were finalizing the terms of the divorce Friday and expected to sign off on the deal Sunday, though it’s unclear whether the British Parliament will pass the deal. 

 

The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares slipped 0.1 percent. Germany’s DAX index rose 0.5 percent, while France’s CAC 40 gained 0.2 percent. 

 

Earlier in Asia, South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.6 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 0.4 percent. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 bucked the trend, gaining 0.4 percent. Shares fell in Taiwan and rose in Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia. Japanese markets were closed for a holiday. 

In Era of Online Retail, Black Friday Still Lures a Crowd   

It would have been easy to turn on their computers at home over plates of leftover turkey and take advantage of the Black Friday deals most retailers now offer online.  

  

But across the country, thousands of shoppers flocked to stores on Thanksgiving or woke up before dawn the next day to take part in this most famous ritual of American consumerism. 

 

Shoppers spent their holiday lined up outside the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., by 4 p.m., and the crowd had swelled to 3,000 people by the time doors opened an hour later. In Ohio, a group of very determined women booked a hotel room Thursday night to be closer to the stores. In New York City, one woman went straight from a dance club to a department store in the middle of the night.  

  

Many shoppers said Black Friday is as much about the spectacle as it is about doorbuster deals.  

  

Kati Anderson said she stopped at Cumberland Mall in Atlanta on Friday morning for discounted clothes as well as “the people watching.” Her friend, Katie Nasworthy, said she went to the mall instead of shopping online because she likes to see the Christmas decorations. 

 

“It doesn’t really feel like Christmas until now,” said Kim Bryant, shopping in suburban Denver with her daughter and her daughter’s friend, who had lined up at 5:40 a.m., then sprinted inside when the doors opened at 6 a.m.  

  

Brick-and-mortar stores have worked hard to prove they can counter the competition from online behemoth Amazon. From Macy’s to Target and Walmart, retailers are blending their online and store shopping experience with new tools like digital maps on smartphones and more options for shoppers to buy online and pick up at stores. And customers, frustrated with long checkout lines, can check out at Walmart and other stores with a salesperson in store aisles.  

  

Consumers nearly doubled their online orders that they picked up at stores from Wednesday to Thanksgiving, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks online spending. 

 

Priscilla Page, 28, punched her order number into a kiosk near the entrance of a Walmart in Louisville, Ky. She found a good deal online for a gift for her boyfriend, then arrived at the store to retrieve it.  

  

“I’ve never Black Friday-shopped before,” she said, as employees delivered her bag minutes later. “I’m not the most patient person ever. Crowds, lines, waiting, it’s not really my thing. This was a lot easier.” 

 

The holiday shopping season presents a big test for a U.S. economy, whose overall growth so far this year has relied on a burst of consumer spending. Americans upped their spending during the first half of 2018 at the strongest pace in four years, yet retail sales gains have tapered off recently. The sales totals over the next month will be a good indicator of whether consumers simply paused to catch their breath or feel less optimistic about the economy in 2019. 

The National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group, is expecting holiday retail sales to increase as much as 4.8 percent over 2017 for a total of $720.89 billion. The sales growth would be a slowdown from last year’s 5.3 percent but yet remain healthy.   

The retail economy is also tilting steeply toward online shopping. Over the past 12 months, purchases at non-store retailers such as Amazon have jumped 12.1 percent as sales at traditional department stores have slumped 0.3 percent. Adobe Analytics reported Thursday that Thanksgiving reached a record $3.7 billion in online retail sales, up 28 percent from the same period a year ago. For Black Friday, online spending was on track to hit more than $6.4 billion, according to Adobe.  

  

Target reported that shoppers bought big-ticket items like TVs, iPads and Apple Watches. Among the most popular toy deals were from Lego, L.O.L. Surprise from MGA Entertainment, and Mattel’s Barbie. It said gamers picked up video game consoles like Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. 

 

Others reported stumbling onto more obscure savings. At a Cincinnati mall, Bethany Carrington scored a $29 all-in-one trimmer for her husband’s nose hair needs and, for $17, “the biggest Mr. Potato Head I’ve ever seen.”  

  

Black Friday itself has morphed from a single day when people got up early to score doorbusters into a whole month of deals. Plenty of major stores including Macy’s, Walmart and Target started their deals on Thanksgiving evening. But some families are sticking by their Black Friday traditions. 

 

“We boycotted Thursday shopping; that’s the day for family. But the experience on Friday is just for fun,” said Michelle Wise, shopping at Park Meadows Mall in Denver with her daughters Ashleigh, 16, and Avery, 14.  

  

By midday Friday, there had not been widespread reports of the deal-inspired chaos that has become central to Black Friday lore — fistfights over discounted televisions or stampedes toward coveted sale items.  

  

Two men at an Alabama mall got into a fight, and one of the men opened fire, shooting the other man and a 12-year-old bystander, both of whom were taken to the hospital with injuries. Police shot and killed the gunman. Authorities have not said whether the incident was related to Black Friday shopping or stemmed from an unrelated dispute.  

  

Candice Clark arrived at the Walmart in Louisville with her daughter Desiree Douthitt, 19, looked around and remarked at how calm it all seemed. They have long been devotees of Black Friday deals and for years braved the crowds and chaos. Clark’s son, about 10 years ago, got hit in the head with a griddle as shoppers wrestled over it. They saw one woman flash a Taser and threaten to use it on anyone who came between her and her desired fondue pot.  

  

They’ve watched over the years as the traditional madness of the day has dissipated as shopping transitioned to online and stores stretched their sales from a one-day sprint to a days-long marathon. 

 

“It seems pretty normal in here,” said Roy Heller, as he arrived at the Louisville Walmart, a little leery of Black Friday shopping, but pleasantly surprised to find that he didn’t even have to stand in line.  

  

He had tried to buy his son a toy robot on Amazon, but it was sold out. Friday morning, he frantically searched the internet and found one single robot left, at a Walmart 25 miles from his home. He bought it online and arrived an hour later to pick it up.  

  

Employees delivered his bag, he held it up and declared: “I got the last one in Louisville!” 

US Climate Report Says Disasters Will Get Worse

A U.S. government report says the impacts of climate change, including powerful storms, droughts and wildfires, are worsening in the United States.

The report, written with the help of more than a dozen U.S. government agencies and departments, frequently contradicts the statements and policies of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The congressionally mandated report was quietly issued Friday during a holiday weekend. The White House later dismissed the report as inaccurate, according to a Reuters report.

White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters told Reuters Friday the report was “largely based on the most extreme scenario, which contradicts long-established trends by assuming that…there would be limited technology and innovation, and a rapidly expanding population.”

The National Climate Assessment, totaling more than 1,000 pages, warned of more powerful and longer weather disasters triggered at least, in part, by global warming.

It said such weather disasters are becoming more commonplace around the country and warned that without aggressive action they could become much worse.

While the report avoids policy recommendations, it said humans must take measures to stop future weather disasters “to avoid substantial damages to the U.S. economy, environment, and human health and well-being over the coming decades.”

“Future risks from climate change depend primarily on decisions made today,” the report said.

It predicted that climate change will cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century if no efforts are made to curb its effects and said global warming would disproportionately hurt the poor.

This year’s National Climate Assessment is the fourth time the U.S. government has issued a comprehensive look at climate change and is the first assessment to take place during the Trump administration. The last report came in 2014.

11 Thirteen government departments and agencies, including the Department of Agriculture and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), were part of a committee of more than 300 researchers who compiled the assessment.

Several people involved in the report told The Washington Post that its release originally had been planned for early December. However, they said after a behind-the-scenes debate about when to make it public, administration officials settled on the Friday after Thanksgiving, traditionally one of the slowest news days of the year. 

During a press conference Friday, authors of the report said there had been “no external interference” in the assessment. Report director David Reidmiller said questions about the timing of the release were “relevant,” but said the contents of the report were more important.

The Trump administration has rolled back several environmental regulations put in place during former President Barack Obama’s administration and has promoted the production of fossil fuels. 

Last year, Trump announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris Agreement, which had been signed by nearly 200 nations to combat climate change. He argued the agreement would hurt the U.S. economy and said there is little evidence in its environmental benefit. 

Trump, as well as several members of his Cabinet, have also cast doubt on the science of climate change, saying the causes of global warming are not yet settled. 

Friday’s report cites other climate studies, which say that humans have caused more than 90 percent of the current global warming.

China: WTO Changes Must Support Developing Countries

China will go along with changes meant to update global trade rules so long as they protect Beijing’s status as a developing country, a Cabinet official said Friday.

The deputy commerce minister, Wang Shouwen, said any changes also must address protectionism and abuse of export controls and security reviews — a reference to Beijing’s trade clash with U.S. President Donald Trump.

China agreed in June to work with the European Union to propose changes to the World Trade Organization to address technology policy, subsidies and state industry — all areas in which Beijing faces complaints. U.S. officials complain the global trade referee is too bureaucratic and slow to adapt to changing business conditions.

Wang said each country’s “development model” must be respected — a reference to China’s state-dominated economy, which has provoked repeated complaints Beijing is violating its market-opening obligations.

Beijing has accused Trump of wrecking the global trading system by going outside the WTO to hike tariffs on Chinese imports. Trump says that was necessary because the global body is unable to respond to complaints about Chinese technology theft, subsidies and state-led industry development.

China is “willing to assume obligations” that are “compatible with our own level of development,” Wang said at a news conference.

“We will not allow other members to deprive China of the special and differential treatment that developing members deserve,” he said.

Wang gave no details of changes Beijing might support. But he said they also must address agricultural subsidies — a frequent complaint by developing countries against industrialized economies — and “discrimination against state enterprises,” a reference to restrictions on Chinese government companies abroad.

Beijing’s insistence that it is a developing country and entitled to special protections despite having grown into the second-largest global economy and a major manufacturer rankles its trading partners. That might dampen chances of reaching agreement on WTO reforms that would satisfy the United States, Europe and other governments.

Other governments dislike Trump’s tactics but echo U.S. complaints about Chinese market barriers and technology policy.

Washington and Beijing have imposed penalty tariffs on billions of dollars of each other’s goods in their dispute over U.S. complaints that China steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology.

The United States, Europe and other governments also object to Chinese plans including “Made in China 2025” for state-led creation of competitors in robotics and other technology. American officials worry those might erode U.S. industrial leadership.

The EU filed a WTO challenge in June to Chinese rules on technology licensing that it said improperly discriminate against foreign companies.

Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, are due to meet this month in Buenos Aires during a gathering of the Group of 20 major economies. Private sector analysts say there is little chance that meeting by itself will produce a settlement.

Wang, the commerce official, gave no details of Xi’s possible negotiating stance. But he said China hopes G-20 members can have an “effective discussion” about WTO reform.

“China hopes the G-20 meeting can support the multilateral trading system (and) oppose unilateralism and trade protectionism,” he said.

Wang warned that an issue that “endangers the WTO’s existence” is the status of judges to mediate disputes. The Trump administration has blocked the appointment of judges to the WTO’s appeal body, leaving only three members on the seven-seat panel.

That is a dispute “between the United States and all other WTO members,” said Wang. “We believe this should be resolved as soon as possible.”

 

Russia, Japan, Azerbaijan Battle to Host 2025 World Expo

Cities in Russia, Japan and Azerbaijan are about to find out which one of them gets to host the 2025 World Expo, an event expected to draw millions of visitors and showcase the local economy and culture.

The 170 member states of the Paris-based Bureau International des Expositions are voting Friday on whether to award the Expo to Yekaterinburg, Osaka or Baku.

Past world’s fairs brought the world such wonders as the Eiffel Tower, the Ferris Wheel and Seattle’s Space Needle — and today’s version is aimed at finding solutions to challenges facing humanity.

World Expos are held every five years; Milan hosted the last one in 2015, and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates is set to host the next one in 2020 . Cities also hold specialized exhibitions in the interim years. No U.S. city has hosted a world’s fair since the 1980s.

They can last up to six months and cost millions of dollars to host, but can help put a city on the global map by bringing in international visitors and attention.

Yekaterinburg is trying for a second time after an earlier failure to win the expo, and Russian President Vladimir Putin presented the bid Friday via video message — before a Russian singer tried to rev up the crowd with song and dance. This time the Russian city, on the boundary between Europe and Asia in Russia’s Ural Mountains, is promising an expo demonstrating technological innovation and how to balance it with quality of life. Russia’s fourth-largest city, it was one of several Russian sites that hosted World Cup matches this year.

Osaka is pitching itself as the safe, reliable choice — notably because it already held the 1970 Expo, while the other cities are lesser known and would be first-time hosts. It’s proposing an expo on a man-made island on the theme of “Society 5.0” and how to leverage robotics and artificial intelligence for the public good.

Leaders in Osaka, Japan’s third-largest city and the largest in western Japan, are hoping the expo will revitalize a city that has lost much of its luster to Tokyo, the nation’s political and economic capital. They have plans to transform the site into a casino resort after the expo, though there is opposition from residents to bringing casino gambling to town.

Baku has the advantage of having lots of oil money thanks to its Caspian Sea reserves. Its expo would highlight ways to improve human health and redefine human roles in an automating world — and the proposed venue would be designed to evoke the geometry of Azerbaijani carpets. The ex-Soviet, Caspian Sea city of 2.2 million has recently hosted a series of international events, including the Eurovision Song Contest and F1 Grand Prix. It is set to host some UEFA Euro 2020 matches.

Amazon Staff in Europe Protest to Coincide With Black Friday

Some of Amazon’s workers in Europe are protesting against what they call unfair work conditions, in a move meant to disrupt operations on Black Friday.

Amazon Spain said around 90 percent of workers at a logistics depot in near Madrid joined a walkout Friday. Only two people were at the loading bay, spokesman Douglas Harper said.

However, he said Amazon had diverted cargo deliveries to its other 22 depots in the country.

On a picket line, 38-year-old employee Eduardo Hernandez said the walkout intended to hurt the company financially.

“It is one of the days that Amazon has most sales, and these are days when we can hurt more and make ourselves be heard because the company has not listened to us and does not want to reach any agreement,” said Hernandez, who has worked for five years at Amazon.

Unions in Britain said they would stage protests at five sites to complain about safety conditions. Amazon said the safety record at its warehouses is above the industry average. Protests were also reported or due in France and Germany.

While Black Friday discounts have traditionally been a U.S. retail event, companies have increasingly been offering discounts in other countries, too.

Ranchers Combat Overgrazing to Fight Climate Change

As the impact of climate change becomes clearer, experts say the world needs to do more than just stop producing greenhouse gases. Aggressive steps also must be taken to pull them out of the atmosphere. While engineers puzzle over high-tech solutions, scientists say nature offers tools today. The world’s grasslands can soak up tons of carbon dioxide. VOA’s Steve Baragona visited a Texas cattle ranch working to restore overgrazed land so it can join the fight against climate change.

WHO: Nigeria Malaria Prevention Campaign Working

The World Health Organization (WHO) says a campaign to distribute anti-malaria drugs to children in Nigeria’s Borno state seems to be making an impact, with fewer cases reported. Nigeria is still the world’s highest malaria-burdened country with 25 percent of all cases worldwide. As Timothy Obiezu reports from Maiduguri, there’s still far more that needs to be done to check the spread of the disease.

Scientists Find Remains of Huge Plant-Eating Mammal

A giant, plant-eating creature with a beaklike mouth and reptilian features may have roamed the Earth during the late Triassic period more than 200 million years ago, scientists said Thursday.

In a paper published Thursday by the journal Science, Polish researchers claim their find overturns the notion that the only giant plant-eaters at the time were dinosaurs.

The elephant-sized creature, known as Lisowicia bojani after a village in southern Poland where its remains were found, belonged to the same evolutionary branch as mammals.

Similar fossils from so-called dicynodonts have been found elsewhere, but they were dated to be from an earlier period, before a series of natural disasters wiped out most species on Earth.

“We used to think that after the end-Permian extinction, mammals and their relatives retreated to the shadows while dinosaurs rose up and grew to huge sizes,” said Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki, a paleontologist at Uppsala University in Sweden who co-authored the paper.

The discovery of giant dicynodonts living at the same time as sauropods, a branch of the dinosaur family that later produced the iconic long-necked diplodocus, suggests environmental factors in the late Triassic period may have driven the evolution of gigantism, the researchers said.

Christian Kammerer, a dicynodont specialist at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences not involved in the find, said the size of Lisowicia was startling.

“Large dicynodonts have been known before in both the Permian and the Triassic, but never at this scale,” he said.

Kammerer said that while dicynodonts and dinosaurs existed at the same time, there’s no evidence yet that they lived in the same habitats. He also questioned the study’s conclusions about Lisowicia’s posture.

“However, overall I think this is a very intriguing and important paper, and shows us that there is a still a lot left to learn about early mammal relatives in the Triassic,” Kammerer said.